All Things Census

Foreign-born Hispanics know more about the 2010 Census than their U.S.-born counterparts, and are more likely to say that they have participated or definitely will, according to a nationwide survey released today by the Pew Hispanic Center. Latinos who are immigrants also are more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to say the census is good for the Hispanic community.

The survey of Hispanic adults was taken March 16-25, which coincided with the arrival of 2010 Census forms in the mail at most U.S. households, as well as the arrival of a reminder postcard.

Overall, 85% of Hispanics say they already have sent in their 2010 Census forms or definitely plan to do so. That is an increase in the expressed willingness to participate among Hispanics from previous Pew Research Center surveys in early March and in January. Hispanics are considered a hard-to-reach group. In 2000, 69% of Hispanic households mailed back their census forms, compared with 79% of non-Hispanic householders.

The Pew Hispanic Center’s statistical profiles of Hispanics and foreign-born U.S. residents have been updated using 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The profiles of economic and demographic characteristics include two topics not covered in previous versions of these profiles: Racial self-identification and health insurance status. Similar profiles are available for the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The Census Bureau’s national map and statistics showing detailed daily participation rates in the 2010 Census is being picked up by journalists around the country in various ways.

USA Today used the data to construct its own look-up tool for participation rates. Here is another interactive map on AOL news, with a story summarizing national rate patterns.

The Houston Chronicle used the Census Bureau’s participation data to drill down to the neighborhood level, and concluded that homeowners in older parts of town are more likely to return their 2010 Census forms than renters in newer areas. One Michigan county has a low participation rate, but that can explained by its high share of vacation homes, according to story on Michigan Radio, the NPR affiliate in the state.

For the 2010 Census as of March 23, the rate is 16%, amounting to about 21 million forms. Census Bureau director Robert Groves said the counting effort was “off to a good start,” though he also said it is too early to discern patterns in the numbers for a variety of reasons.

For example, while some Midwestern states have the highest participation rates so far, Groves noted that some parts of that region had their census forms hand-delivered earlier than the rest of the country received them. (Most households had their forms delivered early last week.) Maryland’s early participation rate also is above-average (25%) as measured, but that rate may be boosted by the fact that a census processing center is located in the state so the returned forms are being counted more rapidly, he said.

The Census Bureau will report the mail participation rate for the nation, states and localities each weekday, based on data received by 1 p.m. EDT the previous day. The reports will end April 23, when the bureau will turn its attention to its non-response follow-up effort.

Among American adults who say they may not participate in the 2010 Census, 44% are under age 30, according to a new analysis of a Pew Research Center survey on attitudes toward the national headcount.

The survey, released last week, found that most Americans are aware of the 2010 Census, and 87% say they definitely or probably will return their forms. But 12% of American adults say they might or might not participate, probably will not participate or definitely will not participate by filling out their 2010 Census forms. This new analysis looks in detail at this skeptical group, which poses a challenge to the Census Bureau’s efforts to achieve a complete count.

As forms for the 2010 U.S. Census arrive in households across the nation this week, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that nearly nine-in-ten Americans (87%) now say they definitely or probably will fill out and return their forms, or have already done so. This represents a six-point increase in likely participation since an earlier survey released in January.

However, younger people and those with lower levels of income and education are less likely than others to say they definitely will participate. The survey also finds differing views about the importance of the census and its possible benefits.

Where should college students be counted in the 2010 Census–at their parents’ home or their school address? The Census Bureau has a cut-and-dried answer, but this question recurs each decade because census rules and people’s preferences are not always in sync.

The 2010 Census operates on the idea that people should be counted at their usual address. According to census rules, people should be counted (“enumerated,” in census-speak) at a residence if they:

Live or stay at the residence most of the time; OR

Stayed there on April 1, 2010 and had no permanent place to live; OR

Stay at the residence more time than any other place they might live or stay.

That means most college students should be counted at their college address, either on campus or off campus. They should be counted at their parents’ home only if they live and sleep there most of the year.

This is puzzling to many people. Even Census Bureau Director Robert Groves wrote on his blog that his two college-student sons were not sure whether they should fill out forms at their school addresses or at their parents’ house. Census research has found that some students are counted twice, once in each place.

To deal with this problem, the Census Bureau added a new question to the 2010 Census form asking whether each person listed as living in a household sometimes lives or stays somewhere else. For those who answer “yes,” the options include “in college housing.” Census officials hope that the answers to this question will help them determine the correct address for everyone who is counted and avoid counting college students more than once. Read more

For the 2010 Census, the Census Bureau will use a new real-time metric, called the “mail participation rate,” to report the share of U.S. households-by state, city, county and neighborhood-that send back their completed forms. Why is this important?

The Census Bureau hopes to count every American in the coming months, but it has a hefty financial incentive to count them quickly. Census forms arrive in most home mailboxes next week. If a household sends back its postage-paid census form, the government spends less than 50 cents in mailing costs. If the completed form does not arrive back by late April, the Census Bureau will send an enumerator to knock on the non-respondent’s door, which costs $57.

As part of its promotional campaign to encourage households to return their forms fast, the Census Bureau plans to release mail participation rates down to the neighborhood level each weekday, from March 22 to April 26. Knowing where the problems are could help the bureau and its partner organizations—such as local governments and community groups—steer their census-encouragement efforts to the areas that could benefit most.

The 2010 mail participation rates will be displayed daily on a recently launched Census Bureau mapping tool, where users already can see 2000 data for states, counties, cities and census tracts (neighborhood-level units of about 4,000 people). For the Bureau’s publicity campaign, the mail participation rate replaces the “mail response rate” used in the 2000 Census because, for reasons described below, officials believe the new measure will give a truer picture in places with large numbers of foreclosed and vacant homes. Read more

A Brookings Institution report released today analyzes in detail the federal money that is distributed to states and localities each year based on results of the once-a-decade census. It concludes that in fiscal year 2008, “215 federal domestic assistance programs, or 15.9 percent of all programs, used census-related datasets to help guide the distribution of $446.7 billion.”

Because of recently added federal economic stimulus funding, it is likely that more than $500 billion a year will be spent based on the 2010 Census, according to the report.

Accompanying the report are tables that display the level of federal census-guided funding for states, large metropolitan areas and large counties.

Despite the long history of Hispanic residents in the United States, there was no systematic effort to count this group separately in the Census until the late 20th century. An analysis of changes in Census question wording over recent decades reveals the challenges in trying to count and describe this fast-growing population.

An estimated 48 million Hispanics are now living in the U.S., or almost 16% of the population. Hispanics are the nation’s largest minority group, having surpassed African Americans in number in 2001. The growth of the Hispanic population this century is due mainly to births in the United States, not immigration from abroad, a reversal of the pattern over the previous four decades.

There was a one-time inclusion of a “Mexican” race category in the 1930 Census, when forms were filled out by census-takers who went door to door. The first major attempt to estimate the size of the Hispanic population for the entire nation was in the 1970 Census, in which forms were completed by residents themselves. The question appeared on one of the two long-form questionnaires sent to a sample of the population, not the short form that everybody answered. The question asked: “Is this person’s origin or descent—“ and the response categories were: “Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, Other Spanish,” and “No, none of these.”

This question did not work very well. The total count of 9.1 million reported in that census was about 500,000 less than other estimates for the Hispanic population. (See this page on the Census Bureau website for data and more history) Further, even this 9.1 million count was about 1 million higher than responses to the question by people of Hispanic origin. According to later research, a major problem was that hundreds of thousands of people living in the south or central regions of the U.S. mistakenly were included in the “Central or South American” category. As is its usual policy, Census reports on the Hispanic population in 1970 use the originally reported figures. Read more

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.